Peter
Attaway withdrew his horror story 'The Hunting Ground' from
the Infinity Plus website
owing to rumours in his local community that the content – vampires
posing as children to entrap child molesters – showed him to be a
paedophile. Therefore he is unfit to coach his son's football team: 'The
club to which I belonged formally investigated the complaint against me,
and came to the conclusion that there was "no case to answer",
but – somewhat bizarrely – decided that I could no longer continue as
a coach with the club as I had "lost the confidence of the parents".'
Next, a letter from the Football Association 'stating that they "had
received evidence that my conduct gave rise to a reasonable belief that
I posed a risk of harm to a child", and that I was to be suspended
from all football and football related activities.' In January 2007 the
hapless author learned from the FA that 'I may be prosecuted for
misconduct, due to the existence of "The Hunting Ground", even
though the story was written seven years before I became a coach
and therefore officially involved with children.' How to fight this
madness?

Iain
Banks's new book, delayed by the break-up of his marriage, is
variously described. An invitation to the related 'The Herald Sunday
Herald Book Series' event calls it 'his first literary novel in almost
five years' – as distinct from illiterary novels like The
Algebraist (2004). [JS] Private Eye's phrasing is 'Banks's
first "proper" novel (as opposed to the sci-fi stuff he turns
out under the name of Iain M. Banks) for five years.' And Radio 4's Saturday
Review, after acknowledging this author's habit of alternating the
'terrestrial' and the 'intergalactic', went on to say: 'The Steep
Approach to Garbadale is his first novel for five years ...' [TK]

Garry
Kilworth took John Brosnan's ashes home, to '... a vineyard
outside the community of Sulky, between the large towns of Ballarat and
Castlemaine in Victoria, Australia. There we scattered the remainder of
John's ashes on the vines, with the words, "Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust, wine to the vine." We chose the vineyard of "Dulcinea"
wines because of the literary connection – Dulcinea being "the
sweet and beautiful one" in Don Quixote as I'm sure you all
know. It was a sunny day, not too hot (though the countryside here is in
the 11th year of a drought) with a wonderful view from the vineyard
which swept down to open fields, over what we would call a dew pond
(here they call it a dam) to hazy blue mountains beyond. There was a
stiff breeze which caught the ashes and spread them down one of the
lanes of vines. I had also chosen a verse from an Australian poem called
"The Old Australian Ways" by Banjo Patterson, who wrote "Waltzing
Matilda". We drove to the bottom of the vineyard where I read it
out loud, feeling the owners might wonder what the heck was going on.
So throw the weary pen aside / And let the papers rest, / For [you]
must saddle up and ride / Towards the blue hill's breast; / And [you]
must travel far and fast / Across their rugged maze, /To find the Spring
of Youth at last, / And call back from the buried past / The old
Australian ways.' [via RH]

Patrick
Moore still knows, to a close approximation, where his towel
is. Asked in the Radio Times (3-9 Feb), 'What's the answer to
life, the universe and everything?', he replied: 'It's 43, isn't it?'
[JD]

Chris
Priest on a listed-building proposal by the Secretary of State
for Culture, Media and Sport: 'Before Tessa Jowell gives Grade I listing
to 221b Baker Street, she really ought to consider Hogwarts Academy and
the House at Pooh Corner.' (Guardian letters, 14 Feb) [JY] Two
days later they also published Rob Holdstock's letter on 'Tessa Jowell's
wonderful piece of "tongue-in-cheekery" about Grade I-listing
221b Baker Street', in which Rob asserted that 'Britain is not a theme
park.' But the Guardian cut his quip about how 'if not careful
we'll be Grade A listing a tree against which Thomas Hardy once relieved
himself ...'

Matthew
Warchus, director of that West End stage musical of The
Lord of the Rings, went to Tolkien's grave in Wolvercote Cemetery to
say Sorry in advance: 'I visited his grave a few months ago to kind of
apologise and get his seal of approval. It was a magical moment.' (Oxford
Mail, 13 February.) [TM] Perhaps the magic consisted of a hollow,
spectral voice that intoned: 'Please credit my input to Alan
Smithee.'

John
C. Wright explains which subgenre his fantasy isn't in: 'Nor
is this book anywhere nearly gross enough to qualify for YA status. To
win awards in YA fiction, one needs to describe rapist elfs sodomizing
boys with thorn bushes, or a father having sex with the ghost of his
little son he murdered. Incestohomopedonecrophilia, we might call that:
One needs special names to describe the new perversions. I wish I were
making those examples up.' (Sci Fi Weekly interview, 15
February) [DB]

Jane
Yolen on
the
Flappies, a new award for book jacket copy: 'When I was a young
editorial assistant (back in the Cretaceous) I wrote the flap copy for
Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and for many years it was
the writing of mine that was in print the longest.' [POM]

Rumblings.Eastercon 2009. The LXcon bid has announced
its venue as the Cedar Court Hotel, Bradford – which according to its
own website has 131 bedrooms, so overflow hotels will be essential. The
rival bid, Concordia, still plans to use the Birmingham (NEC) Metropole
Hotel. See www.LX2009.com and
www.conbids.org/concordia
for more.

Later: the Concordia bid folded shortly before this issue went
to press, although the bid website wasn't updated until the following
day.

As
Others See Doctor Who. Graham Sleight reports: 'ITV1
have a new Saturday night primetime series, called Primeval,
about the threat to present-day London from, uh, dinosaurs and giant
spiders. Metro (8 Feb) ran a feature on the show by Larushka
Ivan-Zadeh, which raised the obvious point that it's an attempt to
compete with Doctor Who. Various cast and crew members deny
this, including Christian Manz, special effects supervisor: "Dr
Who is a fantasy show where they go to other planets. Primeval
is based on science – what species might actually evolve and take over
the planet." Leaving aside the point that the new Who has
visited alien planets only twice in 28 episodes, I must have missed the
CNN and New Scientist coverage of how dinosaurs are about to
reappear and gobble us up. But that's not "fantasy", no
way....'

Nebula
Awards. 2007 novel shortlist: Ellen Kushner, The Privilege
of the Sword; Jack McDevitt, Seeker; Jeffrey Ford, The
Girl in the Glass; Jo Walton, Farthing; Richard Bowes, From
the Files of the Time Rangers; Wil McCarthy, To Crush the Moon.
Winner to be announced in May.
Other categories
here.

R.I.P.Ivar Berggren (1937-2007), long-time Swedish fan known as
'Banjan', died on 20 January aged 69. Sam J. Lundwall writes: 'He was
active in essef fandom from the late 50s, publishing a fanzine, Sviraren
(The Reveller), and organizing for some 40 years the Swedish annual
Champagne Shootings where people shot champagne corks at targets and
each other. A good man, we'll miss him.'
 George Collyn (Colin Pilkington, 1937-2002), whose ten
short sf stories appeared 1964-1967 in New Worlds and (once)
F&SF, died on 21 April 2002. This went unreported in sf
circles, since for professional reasons he kept his real name dark; some
sf bibliographies wrongly list Collyn as a pseudonym of Michael
Moorcock.
 Myrtle Devenish (1913-2007), UK actress seen in Terry
Gilliam's Time Bandits, Brazil and The Meaning of
Life ('Crimson Permanent Assurance'), died on 21 January aged 93.
[AIP]
 Patrice Duvic (1946-2007), French author, editor and sf
anthologist who was a valued member of the 1980s Milford UK workshops,
died on 25 February; he was 61. [MJE]
 Walker Edmiston (1926-2007), US actor who voiced many
roles in tv cartoons and the original Star Trek, died on 15
February at age 81. [PDF]
 Peter Ellenshaw (1913-2007), London-born matte artist
whose visual effects appeared in genre films from Things To Come
(1936) to The Black Hole (1979) and Superman IV (1987),
died on 12 February aged 93. [PDF]
 Charles L. Fontenay (1917-2007), US author of dozens of
magazine stories and three sf novels published 1954-1964, and of 20 more
books including a children's series after his 1987 retirement, died on
27 January; he was 89. [SFWA]
 Lee Hoffman (1932-2007), US author of four sf novels – though better known for her Westerns – and long-time fan who was a
major figure of 1950s 'Sixth Fandom', died from a heart attack on 6
February. She was 74. [GS] Her fifties fanzine Quandry was
central to that era, while Science Fiction Five-Yearly
maintained its ambitious schedule from a 1951 launch – with publishing
help from friends in later years – to the final issue #12 in November
2006. I'm proud to have contributed. Lee ('LeeH'), who was fan guest of
honour at the 1982 Worldcon, will be missed by very many of us.
 Ian Richardson (1934-2007), UK actor honoured with the
CBE, died on 9 February aged 72. Genre appearances included Brazil
(1985), The Canterville Ghost (1997), Dark City (1998),
Gormenghast (2000), Strange (2002-3), and Hogfather
(2006, as the voice of Death). [SG]
 Fred Mustard Stewart (1932-2007), popular US author whose
genre ventures included his first novel The Mephisto Waltz
(1969, filmed 1971), died on 7 February; he was 74. [PDF]

As
Others Poach Us. The MLA has a term for it: 'Genre-Poaching in
Literary Fiction [...] a proposed special session at MLA 2007 (Chicago,
27-30 December) addressing contemporary American "literary fiction"
that co-opts elements of popular genres. [...] This panel will address
works that have been shelved, reviewed, and studied in the realm of
literary fiction but whose authors use tropes, themes, and ideas
explicitly drawn from genres such as science fiction, detective fiction,
romance novels, tv, and superhero comics. Is such co-optation destined
to be condescending, reactionary, or nostalgic; or is it potentially
generative of new literary forms and approaches? [...] What do the
authors have to say about the reprobate status of the forms they're
drawing from?' Some poaching suspects are named, including Jonathan
Lethem ('superheroes') and Cormac McCarthy ('science fiction'). [GC]

Publishers
and Sinners. Mike Resnick is the new Executive Editor of Jim
Baen's Universe, and Ann VanderMeer – wife of Jeff – is the new
fiction editor at Weird Tales. (Both announced February 2007.)

Another
Bloody Poll. A World Book Day poll asked 2,000 readers which
books they couldn't live without. Top ten choices included The Lord
of the Rings (2), the Harry Potter series (4), 1984 (=8) and
'His Dark Materials' (=8). Further titles of genre interest in the full
list: The Hobbit (16), The Time Traveller's Wife (19),
Hitch-Hiker (25), Alice (29), The Wind in the
Willows (30), the Narnia books (33, with The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe getting its own slot at 36), Winnie-the-Pooh
(40), Animal Farm (41), One Hundred Years of Solitude
(43), The Handmaid's Tale (48), Lord of the Flies (49),
Dune (52), Cold Comfort Farm (53), Brave New World
(58), The Lovely Bones (64), Midnight's Children (69),
Dracula (72), The Secret Garden (73), A Christmas
Carol (81), Cloud Atlas (82), Charlotte's Web (87),
The Little Prince (92), The Wasp Factory (93), Watership
Down (94), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (99).
Number one, by the way, was Pride and Prejudice. [JY]

Outraged
Letters.Garry Kilworth (in Australia for 6 months – see above) muses: 'When you have a long list of names, egotistic authors
(like myself) instantly scan it for their own, and are irritated to find
they are not mentioned, until of course they realise they're reading the
obituary column.'
 Ursula Le Guin on A235:
'Michael Chabon doesn't belong in your "As Others See Us" box.
Enough with the paranoia, this guy's on our side. His discussion (in
The New York Review of Books, re Cormac McCarthy's The Road)
of prejudice against sf among critics and why the post-apocalyptic novel
may escape "the science-fictional taint" is subtle, funny, and
accurate. He ends the review by classifying McCarthy's over-the-top mode
not as sf at all, but as horror: an observation that is also subtle,
funny, and accurate.' (Langford feebly protests: I too thought
Chabon was wickedly accurate about the 'taint' of sf, which is why I
prefaced that quote with 'No mockery but just the sad truth ...')
 Mike Scott Rohan on Magnus Magnusson (see
A235): 'I can testify that he certainly
was not a one-off SF reader; he may not have been a fan per se, but he
was well read in imaginative lit, fantasy included – Tolkien, for one,
which was just as well with so many Mastermind contestants focussing on
him. He was a voracious reader generally, frequently encountered in
Edinburgh bookshops in the days when we had any. Al Scott went round
Iceland with him many years back, a remarkably liquid experience by all
accounts, and, since he was given to lambasting the mythical Viking
horned helmets, made him the hero of Magnus Thrihyrning's Saga, ie three
horns. Despite this Magnus very kindly wrote the foreword to our first
collaborative book, and was generous with his time and advice. A great
bloke, sadly missed.'

As
Others See Us II. Wendy Smith on a new Jonathan Raban novel
set in 2010: 'Yet Surveillance is not an exercise in dystopian
fiction – or at least the kind that sends stick figures wandering
through a post-apocalypse landscape.' (Washington Post, 1 March)
[MMW]

Random
Fandom. ½r Cruttenden warns: 'Next Eastercon I
will be ridding myself of a clump of facial shrubbery – to wit – a set
of mutton-chop whiskers.' Sponsors are sought for this hideous public
spectacle, in aid of the fan funds.
 Bruce Gillespie celebrated his 60th birthday with a
dinner for 50 sf fans in Melbourne on 17 February.
 Peter Roberts (Master of Mycology) on his tv appearance:
'I understand that I attracted an audience of 2.9 million viewers for
the first episode of A New Year at Kew on BBC2, but the bastards
have still not contacted me about doing my own series ...' Countless
Roberts fans tuned in to see the fungus collection being moved on 27
Feb, but Pat Charnock reports: 'Although Peter Roberts did
appear in the Kew programme, it was only in passing. This time, he
didn't star. He did some good box-carrying, though.'
 Maureen Kincaid Speller stands proud: 'I notice that my
brother-in-arms, Mike Cobley, is standing for the Lib-Dems in Govan. I'm
now confirmed as the Lib-Dems' candidate in Foord ward in Folkestone,
for both Town and District elections in May.'

Fanfundery.Trip Report Bounties. FANAC's reward for completed TAFF or DUFF
trip reports has risen to $500, and this amount has been sent to TAFF to
mark the publication of Steve Stiles's 1968 report Harrison County.
Joe Siclari of FANAC writes: 'We hope this encourages any outstanding
report writers to get started (including me).'

Thog's
Masterclass.Flatulent Simile Dept. 'They gathered
pace as they walked. The passageway grew narrow and low, causing them to
crouch as they stumbled on. The sound of water grew louder, and the
gusting of the wind was like the eerie farting of a giant animal.' (G.P.
Taylor, The Curse of Salamander Street, 2006) [KD]
 Well I Never! Dept. 'With summer, evening was very long
– it lasted until twilight.' (Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann
Scarborough, Changelings, 2005) [LS]
 Falsies Dept. 'He gently removed her glasses, and his
hard chest rubbed against her breasts as he leaned over to put them on
the table next to his gun.' (Julie Garwood, Shadow Dance, 2006)
[NR]
 Dept of Anatomy. '"Out of my way, boy," the
stranger snarled, with a face like a dented hatchet.' 'The eyes
narrowed, then widened again, and a greasy smirk slid forth.' 'His head
twisted back to address her, but stopped halfway, his eyes on the
floor.' 'It found its focus in the hypnotic swish of the woman's hair,
the supple sway of her rounded hips, and the seductive twitch of her
heart-shaped buttocks – which traded kisses with every confident
stride.' (all Eldon Thompson, The Obsidian Key, 2006) [PM]

Another
Letter!Mike Moorcock writes again: 'As it happened,
Children of Men, the movie, wasn't that great. Pan's
Labyrinth better. But I'm tired of my expectations being raised by
reviews for films which then turn out to be nothing special as far as
imagination and inventiveness are concerned. Shouldn't we be grateful
that the likes of PD James deny this dreadful stuff is science fiction?

'I can confirm that Ballard did a story for Jackanory. I
watched it with my kids at the time. He also did a scenario for When
Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (I think it was) and was lucky enough to
have his name misspelled on the credits. He made some amusing
observations about the process of his original idea to the eventual
reality of film. "They speak high-mindedly about character
motivation, psychology, symbolism and so on but, when it comes down to
it, it's about one cave man hitting another cave man on the head with a
club ..."

'Interesting to see Michael Chabon's piece in the NYT. He's
currently
running a serial there[login needed] which is sword and
sorcery, and his new novel The Yiddish Policemans Union is a
straight alternate world novel where the Jewish homeland (as promised by
FDR) is Alaska rather than Israel. Michael has long been an advocate for
what I suppose I'd call "genre reunification", having edited
the "Thrilling Adventures" issue of McSweeney's, and
has written comics as well as a script for Spiderman 2. He's a
friend of mine and a regular customer at Dark Carnival in Berkeley. I
think it's fair to say that he brings a pretty nifty quality of writing
to his sf and fantasy excursions which can only help the process of
breaking down the walls of snobbery and ignorance separating the genres.
I hope. Wasn't I saying something like this in 1965?' (6 February)

A few days later Mike returned to his fannish roots by making an
appearance at Corflu in Austin, Texas. Bill Burns took the photo:
Earl Kemp,
MM, and Peter Weston ...